Council fixes 50,000th pothole

Cheshire East Council has just repaired its 50,000th pothole this year.

The local authority, which looks after almost 3,000km of highway, announced its war on potholes in January and, with it, a plan to fix 50,000 potholes by this summer.

As part of its ‘Tell Dave’ campaign, the council pledged to invest £23 million over the next two years to revitalise the borough’s roads. A further £2m Government funding has been ploughed into the campaign.

Successive bad winters and under-investment prior to local government reorganisation in 2009 has resulted in an abnormally high number of defects in Cheshire East.

Councillor Michael Jones, leader of Cheshire East Council, said: “There has been a lack of investment over many years by the former Cheshire County Council. Now, it is great to see a local authority find the resources to repair the roads, despite freezing council tax for a third year running.

“We thank the Government for their £2m contribution to this and will hopefully gain even more this year.”

Now, having smashed the 50,000 pothole target, Cheshire East is moving up a gear to ‘surface-dress’ more roads.

Councillor David Topping, Cabinet member in charge of the environment, added: “Surface dressing is a process using bitumen and chippings which protects roads that have been patched ahead of winter to make repairs last longer. This year’s surface dressing will use around 700,000 square metres of bitumen.”